Jul 19, 2010

Days 13, 14, 15 and 16

Day 13, New Castle – Colby

So, today was pretty much all about driving. We woke up at 8 am, ate breakfast, packed our bags and got in the car. Nothing new ;) We drove for a long time until we got to Genesee where we went to see Buffalo Bill’s grave. We also ate some snack.

We drove for a long time and arrived to Kansas which is 6th state so far; California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado and now Kansas. Still many more to come… We had to change the time one hour ahead since it’s a new time zone. We arrived to Colby and went to grab coffees from Starbucks. There’s a free Wi-Fi so dad looked for motels. We drove around the city and then got to Quality Inn motel where we got a room from.

We went to eat at Burger King and then got back to the motel where Aleksi, Aku and dad went swimming. Now we’re watching TV! And again, no idea of tomorrow ;)

Day 14, Colby – Junction City

We woke up at 8 am, ate breakfast and got in the car. We drove a couple of hours until we arrived to Hays. There we went to see some buffalos, they’re BIG! We also found a place, Frontier City, which has houses from the time of civil war. Kansas was the first state to set the slaves free back in the 19th century. There was a church, block house, guard house and officers quarters.

We continued driving to Junction City. We had a reservation so we got a room. Unfortunately we had accidentally booked a smoking room so when we got in the smell was horrible! We went downstairs to the reception to ask if we could get a non-smoking room. Luckily they had some rooms left so we got a room which didn’t smell.

We went to eat at KFC, Kentucky Fried Chicken and after eating drove to Wal-Mart where we bought some food for the evening, water and Vitamin Waters. We got back to the motel, mom and dad went to do some laundry and at 7 pm we went to a rodeo. It was a very cool experience! There was horse and bull riding, roping and some other cool things, like a bull poker ;D That’s a thing where some men were playing poker as they let a bull run around the area. The man who stayed the longest without moving from the chair was the winner ;)

When the rodeo was over they shoot some fireworks and after that we went back to the motel. It was 11 pm so we went to sleep!

Day 15, Junction City – Effingham

So, today was again a day full of driving ;) We woke up at 8 am, went to eat breakfast and then packed our things. We got in the car and drove for a couple of hours until we arrived to a city which is just by the Missouri River. We ate lunch at a restaurant and then continued driving.

We arrived to St. Louis around 5 pm. We walked by the Mississippi River and around the park where the Arch is, btw it's designed by a Finn, Eero Saarinen ;) We took some pictures but it was so hot out there so we soon went back in the car and continued driving. We stopped at a gas station to buy ice creams and hot dogs for the boys.

We arrived to Effingham, Illinois, about at 8 pm. We had booked two rooms from there so that's just fine for us! ;) Good nighty!

Day 16, Effingham – Geneva on the Lake

Today we woke up at 9 am, ate breakfast, packed our stuff and started driving. We drove three-four ours and then went to grab some lunch from Taco Bell. After eating we went to a store to buy some fruits, me and Aleksi tried to look for a nice DVD which we could’ve watched at the car. We didn’t find any, so we just continued driving.

At some part of driving on a highway when listening to music on my iPod I suddenly heard mom yelling: "DECEL DECEL DECEL!" (JARRUTA JARRUTA JARRUTA in Finnish, I'm not sure if that's the right word for it in English ;) ) I looked from the front window and saw a car and some kind of smoke coming from it, it was loosing its speed and dad realllly quickly turned the wheel to right so we didn't crash with the car in front of us! I have no idea what happened but it was seriously about 2 seconds and we would've hitted the car! So scary. The car behind us had to do the same as we did, and I don't know if the car hitted someone or something or not. I don't know what happened to it, everything just happened so fast...

Well, around 7 pm we bought coffees from Starbucks ;) Then we continued driving through a few beautiful towns; Painsville, Perry… Mom said the area reminded her of Natick, the place where we used to live at Boston. The houses were just really, really pretty and the backyards were so big that you could play football at them…

We drove to Geneva which is a city just by the Erie Lake, in Ohio. What a lovely place to live at! We went to have a competition at the lake: Who throws a rock the farest away? I think Aku won. Dad went to get us a room from Pera’s Motel. We have two rooms, a small kitchen, a bathroom and a small living room over here ;) Mom thinks it’s a “murju” ;D

We went to the beach, mom and dad went to have drinks as me, Aku and Aleksi went to play miniature golf. I won! ;D A car passed us by and a man shouted from the window: “A tornado is coming! Get cover!!” Aleksi got really scared ‘cause it started to rain and we saw a LOT of lightnings. It got very windy and as we were almost done with playing, mom and dad came and we went quickly to grab Fries for supper. They were closing because of the coming storm and we waited for the Fries under cover in the hard rain. We got the Fries but it rained still a lot so we decided to stay there to eat them, waiting for the storm to pass by. I thought the whole situation was a bit funny: “Yeah, a storm and a tornado’s coming and we’re here, standing outside at the rain eating French Fries. Let’s not go back to our room, let’s stay here and eat when the Fries are still hot!” ;D

After finishing eating me and Aleksi jogged back to our room as the others walked. It still rained. We got inside and put the TV on. Now we’re watching Shrek 2. What a day! :)